# Jewish Dopers: Have you ever watched the film "Defamation"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 18, 2011, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018 "2011-01-18T00:12:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/81 "2011-01-19T09:44:31Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > Great film, thanks for bringing it to light, **monstro**. Entertaining young man if a bit Moorish in his ways I salute him for his effort. That said, I’d think you’d know better than to bring this as a topic to GD what with all the years you’ve been here: page after page of Impenetrable Walls Of Text© defending all that’s Right with Israel. > > Don’t agree? Anti-Semite and/or self-hating Jew. Duh! > > Just ask Mr Foxman. > [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > And here it is. The topic of the film is anti-Semitism, in Europe and the U.S. Israeli policies are not the issue. But you insist on conflating them, along with the typical “there is no such thing as anti-Semitism, only legitimate protest against Israel” dig. I “insist”? _Really?_ Well then kindly point out to me where, in that short post, I conflated Antisemitism and US/Israeli policies _once_; never mind the illusionary _insistence_ you speak of. :rolleyes: As for the topic of the film, it might do you well to actually watch the darn thing as opposed to going by whatever synopsis you appear to have read. For it basically breaks down into two intertwined parts. An irreverent\* profile of Abe Foxman and the ADL in their quest to find anti-Semitism whether real or perceived, and a more somber look at the indoctrination (the “us” vs “them” siege mentality) the High School kids portrayed in the film appear to be under. Looking at the former, [Yoav Shamir](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1516376/) gives us what seems to be a candid inside take on not just the obvious power of Foxman – the meeting with the Ukranian PM a clear example of that, as Foxman admonishes the man on the way Ukraine should deal with the The Holocaust – but also the motivation of some of its non-religious members, i.e. identification with Israel as both a ‘troubled but loved child’ and a ‘necessary refuge’ in (possible) times of need. This part of the film also gives voice to a number of dissenting Jews (some already mentioned, some not. Such as the Crown Heights rabbi, who expresses his disapproval of Foxman and the ADL ‘product’ with sound skepticism) as well as a number of black members of the community. The part involving the kids, to me, simply questions if this is the right and/or only way to teach them about their tragic and recent past. It was both sad and hopeful to watch, as some of kids themselves question the methods used – a particularly poignant moment shows one one girl expressing frustration for not feeling angry/sad as she’s apparently supposed to. OTH and as already mentioned upthread, there’s a few of them that do seem rather hateful and distrustful of outsiders. \*Which is why I called the director “Moorish.” As in America’s own MM. > [@](#): > > \*Is it really the pro-Israeli zealots who are solely responsible for conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, or is the blame also borne by **Jew-haters like RedFury** , who insist on holding all Jews responsible for Israel’s actions, and reflexively denying the possibility of anti-Semitism in contexts that have nothing to do with Mideast politics? – bolding mine. I suppose this is where I get to thank you for making my exact point. And Shamir’s and that of many others Jews depicted in the film…and obviously any of those that dare not toe the line dictated by the Israeli Government and their devoted American brethren. Defamation indeed. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/82 "2011-01-19T10:03:34Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > In other words, it’s the Jews’ fault for surviving. No no no. It’s that, sure, we have centuries upon centuries of a recurring pattern where Jews get comfortable in a nation, make a life for themselves and then are used as a scapegoat and tormented by the majority. But also, ya know, the Etruscan civilian fell and the Pict tribes were absorbed by other tribal groups. So anti-Semitism doesn’t exist. Good god man, does he have to draw you a map? It’s as plain as the hooked nose on your face! > [@RedFury](#): > > toe the line dictated by the Israeli Government and their devoted American brethren. Oooh, with bonus Dual Loyalty insinuation. Neato! Any time now Red, feel free to identify the reasoning behind naming every American politician who you can remember and whose names ‘sound Jewish’, and accusing them all of being potential Jewish Traitors. Don’t worry, if someone named everybody they could think of with dark skin who ‘looked black’ and accused them all of being potential watermelon thieves, people would only say that was a racist accusation because of Israel. Of course. > [@RedFury](#): > > I “insist”? _Really?_ Well then kindly point out to me where, in that short post, I conflated Antisemitism and US/Israeli policies _once_ Probably in the bit where you engaged in your normal song and dance about how any criticism of “all that’s Right with Israel” means that one is an “Anti-Semite and/or self-hating Jew”. > [@RedFury](#): > > and a more somber look at the indoctrination (the “us” vs “them” siege mentality) the High School kids portrayed in the film appear to be under. Ah yes, that “indoctrination”, since anti-Semitism isn’t a global problem and Israel doesn’t have two genocidal factions at its borders. Luckily we have folks like you, looking out for what’s best for the Jews. > [@RedFury](#): > > there’s a few of them that do seem rather hateful and distrustful of outsiders. Ah well, darn those\* Bad Jews\* (not like the Good Jews\*\*, who question whether they’re supposed to feel sadness about Ha Shoah), clannish and hateful and distrustful of “outsiders”. Not, ya know, hateful of Nazis and their heirs and uneasy in a nation like Poland with a long, virulent history of anti-Semitism and a modern contingent of anti-Semites in politics as well a number of skinheads. Surely, it’s the clannish thing, those hateful clannish bastards distrustful of outsiders. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/83 "2011-01-19T10:59:55Z")
> [@Lakai](#): > > Those are home grown terrorists. The terrorists Israel has to deal with are not within Israel’s borders. :rolleyes: Oh sure, Palestinian terrorism is so foreign. Not home-grown at all… > [@](#): > > Advocating for a more military approach is not advocating for more of the same thing. If one police officer could not restrain a suspect by himself, would it be insane to suggest that more police officers would make a difference? Yeah, sure. But that’s a stupid analogy. Soldiers’ job, crudely put, is to kill. So \*more \*soldiers is going to lead to \*less \*killing…_how_, exactly? > [@](#): > > It worked to suppress the insurgency in Iraq. Hey, rewrite history in your head all you want, but that wasn’t what happened. Plenty of civilians got killed along with “insurgents”. > [@](#): > > It’s a misguided interpretation based on stereotypes and prejudices against Jews. Umm, no. It’s an interpretation based on the methods that other countries have actually shown to work against terrorists. > [@](#): > > The misinterpretation is not regarding whether Israel is fighting terrorism “nicely” - it’s not - the misinterpretation is regarding the belief that Israel _could_ combat terrorism “nicely” if it wanted too. You have yet to show how this belief is mistaken. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/84 "2011-01-19T11:58:59Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Um… where are they, then? > > If you’re not counting the areas under PLO control as part of Israel, then you shouldn’t be counting the Basque country as part of Spain, either. Excuse me, please do not continue that particular hijack or someone will be left hurting. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/85 "2011-01-19T12:26:46Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > Is it really the pro-Israeli zealots who are solely responsible for conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, or is the blame also borne by Jew-haters like RedFury, who insist on holding all Jews responsible for Israel’s actions, and reflexively denying the possibility of anti-Semitism in contexts that have nothing to do with Mideast politics? [My emphasis.] Please don’t make comments like this about other posters in this forum. Save them for the BBQ Pit. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/86 "2011-01-19T12:35:51Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > Really? > > I suppose the Nazis just decided that enough was enough and gave up? Do you at read the posts you cut from? The world did not act to stop the genocide; countries responded to attacks against them and to the threat of future attacks against them. And while doing so they did nothing to stop the genocide. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/87 "2011-01-19T15:07:33Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > I think there’s a difference between a Hasidic Jew and a suicide bomber. But I only said that when they require the society they live in to bend over in order to accommodate their wants, they’re going to attract negative attention, attention that will fall over the Jewish community as a whole, since they are its most obvious members. You may be amused to know that _in Israel itself_ the political demands of the ultra-orthodox to have social matters adjusted their own way raise great dislike against them … among Jews. Point here is that they are an unrepresentative minority. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/88 "2011-01-19T15:09:28Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Do you at read the posts you cut from? The world did not act to stop the genocide; countries responded to attacks against them and to the threat of future attacks against them. And while doing so they did nothing to stop the genocide. David Wyman’s book **The Abandonment of the Jews** makes that argument fairly persuasively. > [@](#): > > [http://www.amazon.com/Abandonment-Jews-America-Holocaust-1941-1945/dp/1565844157](http://www.amazon.com/Abandonment-Jews-America-Holocaust-1941-1945/dp/1565844157) > > It has long been alleged that officials in the Roosevelt administration knew, in surprising detail, about Adolf Hitler’s plans to exterminate all the Jews in Nazi Europe–and that these officials did little to prevent the massacre, refusing asylum to shiploads of Jewish refugees and failing to order the bombing of railway lines leading to Auschwitz, Treblinka, and other concentration camps. David S. Wyman examines the evidence, concluding that senior American officials could indeed have saved many thousands, if not millions, of European Jews by intervening earlier. In this controversial work, he suggests, with good cause, that a combination of anti-Semitism and indifference to anything not perceived as being of direct strategic importance to the United States indirectly led to countless deaths. --Gregory McNamee ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/89 "2011-01-19T15:31:07Z")
It may be subject for another thread, but in strictly military terms ignoring the Nazi genocides made perfect, if cold-hearted, sense. After all, the Nazi obsession with killing off sizable numbers of their own subject peoples was doing the Nazis nothing but harm - for example, tying up much-needed railway stock at a time where there was none to spare even for shipping vital war supplies. It was in their enemies’ interests that the Nazis be distracted by irrelevant self-harming idiocy like that. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/90 "2011-01-19T15:32:01Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > You may be amused to know that _in Israel itself_ the political demands of the ultra-orthodox to have social matters adjusted their own way raise great dislike against them … among Jews. For instance, take [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok_92ldxF0Y)\*very \*controversial campaign ad that ran before the 2006 elections… once. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/91 "2011-01-19T15:42:39Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > For instance, take [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok_92ldxF0Y)\*very \*controversial campaign ad that ran before the 2006 elections… once. 😃 Hilarious. I wonder if the Parti Québécois would dare to air that ad with “say no to money and the ethnic vote!” as the slogan. 😉 "After all, it ran in Israel … " ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/92 "2011-01-19T15:47:46Z")
That’s why they took it off the air so fast it’s a wonder it ran all the way though. Not because people thought it was racist, but because it could be perceived as racist by outsiders. Plus, it made people think of Josef Goebbels, and not in a good way. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/93 "2011-01-19T15:51:44Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > That’s why they took it off the air so fast it’s a wonder it ran all the way though. Not because people thought it was racist, but because it could be perceived as racist by outsiders. Plus, it made people think of Josef Goebbels, and not in a good way. That ad definitely falls into the “what the fuck were they even thinking?!” category. 😃 I mean, I understand the political context - if I was Israeli, I’d certainly resent the ultra-orthodox too - but the imagry … ! ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/94 "2011-01-19T16:31:00Z")
It’s interesting… through the first few viewings the impact is still obvious to me. Something like “We don’t like the ultra-orthodox having a legislative lock on the process due to swinging their votes in a block.” But I guess to some it doesn’t look like “these are Jews criticizing other Jews for their politics.” but “Look at how Jews are!” ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/95 "2011-01-19T16:58:46Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > It’s interesting… through the first few viewings the impact is still obvious to me. Something like “We don’t like the ultra-orthodox having a legislative lock on the process due to swinging their votes in a block.” > > But I guess to some it doesn’t look like “these are Jews criticizing other Jews for their politics.” but “Look at how Jews are!” Well yeah. That’s because you know very well the political context. To someone who doesn’t … 😃 ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/96 "2011-01-19T17:16:41Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > **monstro** , I’m not reading anyone saying that Slavery and Jim Crow should not be taught. Are you? Just that the experiences are not exactly analogous and that it is a mistake to consider them as if they were. It is a mistake to compare them too much, and forced analogies force that. I don’t understand why nothing is ever analogous to the Holocaust. **FinnAgain** argues why it’s different from slavery–a notion that is so facile that I don’t know why he bothered. Analogies, by definition, are different. But why are the two not _comparable_? Why is this country’s history with black people not analogous with Jewish hatred in general? The Shoah is something so painful and horrible that Jewish people feel as if they own it. And perhaps they are entitled to this feeling…I’m not passionate enough to argue for or against this. But to shut down ANY dialogue by saying it’s not analogous to this or that incident of oppression is to make people like me–folks who are very sympathetic to what Jewish people have been through–ANGRY. It is frustrating to be shut down like that. Just as it was frustrating watching Foxman be so condescending to the Ukrainian PM, who hadn’t uttered a single word about the Ukrainian famine as far as we could tell. And Jewish people that I have encountered in real life have had no problems comparing their histories and lives with my people’s history and life experience. That’s why I have so many Jewish people in my circle…we tend to see things on the same wavelength a lot of time. It’s only on this board where I am met with walls of self-righteousy paragraphs about how Everything about the Jews is Different and Therefore Special. Usually written by **FinnAgain**. Parallels in experience _exist_. For instance, it stings when black people are told to shut up about racism. It stings with Jewish people are told to shut up about anti-Semitism. But one rarely hears about Jews playing the “anti-Semitism” card…at least in MY experience (and I admit that I may not have a sensitive enough radar.) For once in my life, I got to see Jewish people doing things that my people have been accused of doing by so many, for so long–playing the “victim” card. I do not think the filmmaker created these people out of thin air, although–as I have said repeatedly–I think he didn’t try too hard to show the full picture. But it was interesting to ME to see that they in fact exist…and it would trouble me if there is a possibility that they are guilting people into doing things that are against our country’s best interest. No one has yet to explain why this is so improbable. The documentary certainly showed how it isn’t, so I obviously need to hear the other side and be, as they say, edjumacated. And apologies for my ignorance, but I don’t know Finklestein from Finklefoot. Therefore, I’m not impressed by the sweeping condemnation of him and the other controversial figures shown in the film. (For context, I was raised by a mother who taught me that the more controversial a person is, the more likely he or she is to be telling the truth. I don’t agree with my mother on a lot of things…but if all I hear from people is “Oh that guy! Don’t listen to him!” I can’t help but hear my mother saying, “Girl, you better listen to him!”) > [@](#): > > And yes my parents were teen-agers during the Holocaust. Yes I lost family during it, family that I never got to meet. You have my sympathies. Sincerely. I don’t know what it’s like to lose close family members to oppression. I imagine it is terrible. > [@](#): > > And **Shmedrick** is exactly correct. No country lifted a finger to stop the genocide or even to assist those who had otherwise escaped from having to return to certain death. The Holocaust was stopped only as a secondary consequence of protecting nation states from German conquest. The reason I snapped at **Shmedrick** is because he was going down that alley of “woe is us” that I didn’t want to go into. So the countries weren’t actively trying to save the Jews…I never SAID they were. I’m not a naive teenager who doesn’t understand geopolitics or the history of WWII. I did not need that particular lesson. But I see a double-standard here. If I were to say the Civil War was bullshit because it wasn’t about freeing the slaves, people would be jumping all OVER me. I would be seen as an ingrate, or someone with a giant chip on her shouder, trying to be all controversial and junk. So even though people are always patting themselves(!) on the back for what the Union did for slavery, I say nothing. Because I know what I’d get in return. It’s not worth it. So I was being petty and giving **Shmedrick** the same treatment that black people who talk about slavery get all the time. I apologize, **Shmedrick**. That’s usually not my style. But **FinnAgain’s** Holier-Than-Thou Approach to Jews and Everything Jewish really works a sista’s nerves. > [@](#): > > Why care? Because Jew hating to the point of mass murders is a _recurring theme_ over the past two thousand years. A generation or so of assimilation and success, then an economic downturn and the Jews get blamed and murdered en masse. That’s just history. The German Jews before the rise of Nazism were highly successful overall, both in academic and economic circles. They were highly assimilated and listened more to classical German composers than to Klezmer. Until the German economy collapsed after WW1. What would make anyone believe that historic patterns have just stopped, that human nature has suddenly changed? Things are not so bad in America now, but my father had to pretend to be Italian to make sales and I’ve personally was called a kike and a Jewboy in college (and honestly thought I was going to be killed, literally battered body found, when I got into a fight with that very large football player racist in response. And the funny punchline was that I got out having come out on top and the first person I ran into to vent to was a guy who was the one Black guy in my otherwise White and more than half Jewish fraternity, who gave me the greatest look when I innocently vented and asked if he had any idea what it was like to come up against something like that … Oh, yeah, I forgot you’re Black.). I hear you, **DSeid**. And through your words, I hear my words. My frustration. My anger. My sadness. My desire to turn back the clock and have history play out differently. But it seems like it’s taboo around here for me to relay my sympathy to you because I might risk drawing “too many comparisons” between the black experience and the Jewish experience. And we can’t have that…even though in the 1960s, we didn’t seem to have that problem so much. What changed, I wonder? Why are we now on two opposite sides, rather than standing together? > [@](#): > > A few decades into a “good” part of the cycle, in this country only really, really is not enough to relax about it. You know, it’s funny that you would say this. Because I distinctly [remember](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=489521&highlight=monstro) you calling me out for asking about the prevalence of anti-black racism in this country. It was during the Obama campaign, and I was venting my frustration at people’s readiness to call racism an over-and-done-with deal, when recent evidence in the media was showing that not to be the case. You told me all I was doing was ranting and basically dismissed the problems I was pointing out. But now you seem to be agreeing with me. A few decades ago both Jewish people and black people were treated just as good as mud. We both agree. _So why does it seem like we’re always fighting one another when it comes to race discussions?_ That, I’d really like to know! ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/97 "2011-01-19T17:55:52Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > It’s only on this board where I am met with walls of self-righteousy paragraphs about how Everything about the Jews is Different and Therefore Special. Usually written by **FinnAgain**. Yeah, that’s a pretty disgusting piece of fiction monstro, and you should probably retract that shit. It’s interesting that you’ve gone straight from the fact that Jews and blacks aren’t fungible, and the persecution they experienced isn’t fungible, and the Holocaust isn’t comparable with slavery… to making up bullshit about how anybody (let alone me) has said that “Everything about the Jews is Different and Therefore Special”. > [@monstro](#): > > But to shut down ANY dialogue by saying it’s not analogous to this or that incident of oppression is to make people like me–folks who are very sympathetic to what Jewish people have been through–ANGRY. You should try not getting ANGRY when the fact that two events aren’t analogous is pointed out to you. “I want to compare these two things.” “Well, they’re really not comparable due to…” “HULK SMASH!!!” > [@monstro](#): > > But **FinnAgain’s** Holier-Than-Thou Approach to Jews and Everything Jewish really works a sista’s nerves. It’s hard to credit you being annoyed by something that never actually happened and that you’ve made up. I’m now quite interested to find out what’s really “getting on your nerves” and causing you to talk bullshit about Jewish exceptionalism that you’ve had to invent. Care to elaborate? > [@monstro](#): > > **FinnAgain** argues why it’s different from slavery–a notion that is so facile that I don’t know why he bothered. Rather disingenuous of you, don’t you think? You tried to equate a possible narrative of slavery with the modern Jewish narrative of the holocaust. You were using blacks/Jews, and the Holocaust/slavery, and blacks’/Jews’ reactions to them, as if they were fungible. I explained that. And no, of course the two aren’t comparable. One was an organized attempt to wipe an entire ethnic group off the face of the planet, the other was the treatment of certain Africans and those of African descent as property. Being butchered by the Nazis is no more “like being a slave” than slavery was “like being butchered by the Nazis”. Just like slaves in Saudi Arabia now don’t know “what it was like to be in the antebellum South” any more than they know “what it was like to be in Auschwitz”. Slavery and the Holocaust were both simply atrocities that happened, and were based on race. That’s about it. > [@monstro](#): > > Why is this country’s history with black people not analogous with Jewish hatred in general? You’ve been given the answer to that too. Cycles of acceptance/prosperity followed by backlash/persecution over centuries and in many different countries is different from the black experience in America. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. > [@monstro](#): > > The Shoah is something so painful and horrible that Jewish people feel as if they own it. We had someone recently make this claim, too. However, all the major Holocaust museums and memorial sites, pretty much invariably, note that the Holocaust involved roughly equal numbers of Jews and gentiles who were butchered. It’s very interesting that you see that as “Jewish people” trying to “own it” and get “ANGRY” to the point where you make up stuff about how anybody’s said “Everything about the Jews is Different and Therefore Special”. > [@monstro](#): > > But I see a double-standard here. If I were to say the Civil War was bullshit because it wasn’t about freeing the slaves, people would be jumping all OVER me. Because you’d be factually incorrect. The civil war was a war over slavery. WWII, on the other hand, was not about helping the Jews. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/98 "2011-01-19T18:36:22Z")
**FinnAgain** and **monstro** : both of you need to have this debate without making comments about each other personally or suggesting the other poster is being dishonest. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/99 "2011-01-19T19:08:02Z")
I haven’t said she’s being dishonest. I pointed out the facts, namely that “Everything about the Jews is Different and Therefore Special” was a fictional argument, one that monostro created, and one that she applied to me. Those are all facts. Honesty never entered into the discussion. For all I know, monstro created her “Special” claim, applied it to me, and then forgot that she was the one who created it, and not me. Who knows. _I’m not discussing let alone suggesting what her intent may have been._ Edit: and the only personal comment was about her own claim that something that I didn’t actually say is making her “ANGRY”. She was the one who brought up her emotional state, not me. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018/100 "2011-01-19T19:14:46Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I don’t understand why nothing is ever analogous to the Holocaust. … Your last point first. Please re-read my posts in that thread. In NO WAY did I say you were ranting over nothing or dismiss the problems. I merely stated, clearly I thought, that we should not lump a woman’s perception that someone is watching her in a store together with someone who is the victim of a hate crime. I was unable to express myself in a way that made sense to you, and I regret that, but I was frustrated that you were understanding me to be saying something I had not intended. That same principle applies here. A teen ager imagining that someone is a Nazi is not the same “hate” as the firebombing of a temple. If you read my first post here I specifically note how I think anti-Semitism in America is pretty benign and hidden. The haters are mostly marginalized and underground. For both the cases of anti-Black bigotry and anti-Semitism the overt hater is more marginalized than in times past. For Blacks much more than Jews there is still a residual of institutional racism, not motivated by hate so much as by the effects of years of discrimination. The old school Jew hating is now only explicitly mainstream in the Arab world and imported back into the West from there. What Jews have to deal with is the fact that some are suspicious and resentful of their success as an American sub-cultural group and the unavoidable charges of clannishness and conspiricy. Why analogize with great caution? Specifically we do NOT want to get into arguing whose oppression was worse. They both were awful and both very very different. Still some comparison is useful. Slavery and the Passage were horrific events and the treatment of Blacks in America for many years after not much better. And again racist attitudes persist and institutional effects will take even longer to correct. Few American Blacks however look at their history and reasonably conclude that Blacks may be made slaves again. OTOH any Jew who does not look at history and have some fear that his grandchildren’s or great grandchildren may again be labelled as “other” and targeted for mass murder in the future is, IMHO, a fool. And indeed Jews are _often_ accused of playing the anti-Semitism card … just look in this thread … even when the Jew hating is extremely overt. I for one try very hard to avoid calling a Jew-hater an anti-Semite … it is not worth it - it gives them the chance to accuse me of “playing the card” and I’d rather let them make what they are obvious to others themselves. You don’t see it? Maybe radar, maybe you just are not in those rooms at the time. The Civil War _wasn’t_ about freeing the slaves. At least not exclusively or even primarily. Some cared about that and it was part of the dynamic, but it was not why there was a war. And few in the North cared too much that Blacks were still functionally slaves after the war. Sure, you’ll run into some who ignorantly believe otherwise, and the ignorant do not appreciated being corrected. So? Are there Jews who are like Woody Allen’s character in Annie Hall, hearing slurs where none were intended? Of course. And teen agers in Poland may be primed to see it … for good reasons. I know my brother was imagining all kinds of things when we were kids visiting small towns in Germany. Are there Black women who imagine that they are being watched in a store because they are Black when actually someone was admiring a figure? Of course also. Neither informs about how much racism/anti-Semitism there really is and in what forms it is currently manifest. Neither informs about what each group worries about in the future based on their individual histories and with what justification. Does that make sense to you? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jewish-dopers-have-you-ever-watched-the-film-defamation/568018.md?page=6)